Orphaned at four growing up at a time when the stigma of illegitimacy was lifelong divorce scandalous and cruelty in the home left to take its course my mother confessed her shameful origins to her children only when she was in her sixties. She died without knowing who her father was. But a subsequent chance meeting in her birthplace Broken ......
Jenny Maree has lived in three countries and uses each of these adventures to explore imagery and thoughts inspired by different environments. The colours and textures are made vivid by the author’s descriptions. In Jenny’s previous books she has paid attention to the different meanings of the same word in different regions ......
Edna Taylor’s second book of short stories is about a scarecrow a dog and a cat a UFO and dreams. Brief encounters and an anonymous gift plus strange happenings which can turn one’s life onto unexpected pathways and into a completely new direction. Which only goes to prove that ordinary can turn into extraordinary in the blink of ......
‘Though its title suggests a dark netherworld the poems in swimming underground offer striking glimpses into the past present and possible future. Some movingly recall childhood trauma others celebrate iconic Sydney places and people such as Cockatoo Island and Mr Eternity. There are pointed satires of Centrelink ......
An engrossing detailed moving account of a community dealing with crisis. The Australian landscape the 1970s and the sense of Australian character and culture are evocatively portrayed.’ – Nigel Krauth
‘I’m impressed with the wealth of experience and information re-created. Congratulations on such a diverse ......
Surprising personal glimpses of the eminent and enigmatic Australian poet
‘I wonder sometimes if the literary pests are writing memoirs: “The last time I saw her she was pale and sick but smiling bravely.”’ So mused the dying Gwen Harwood in a letter written a few months before she succumbed to cancer. Nearly two ......
In his poem ‘The Road Not Taken’ Robert Frost writes of taking the road less travelled and this making all the difference. In ‘Leisure’ W.H. Davies writes ‘What is this life if full of care we have no time to stand and stare’. Both poems have strongly influenced how I have lived my life. In the past I ......
The Tiger in the Vineyard is a collection shaped by wide personal experience of pressing social issues. The poems reflect a commitment to verse that is lucid structured accessible and vivid and draws on its tradition and a deeply felt concern for the disadvantaged and traumatised. Written in a range of variations on traditional forms and free ......
I acknowledge with deep respect the Wiradjuri Elders past and present traditional custodians of the land that bore me and where the words I write were formed. The stories in these poems are all true and all come from that land between the three rivers - far western New South Wales - where my ancestors too lie buried.
